


Awakening

by MegumitheGreat



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Between the Scenes, Canon Compliant, Comatose Cloud, Human Experiments, M/M, Mako Poisoning (Compilation of FFVII), Sickfic, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:16:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23966020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegumitheGreat/pseuds/MegumitheGreat
Summary: Zack breaks out of his capsule and frees Cloud, but he doesn't know where or when they are.  After learning what had happened, Zack prepares Cloud for the escape from Nibelheim.
Relationships: Zack Fair & Cloud Strife
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	1. Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> Hiiiiii....sooooo I've had this idea from when I played Crisis Core back when it was hella popular, and the resurgence in FF7's popularity has finally given me the courage and presence of mind to FINALLY act on his idea. It's short, but this was when I first started to ship in general, and Zack and Cloud was one of the first pairs I shipped~

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zack's side of waking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic now has two chapters!

After breaking out of his capsule and freeing Cloud from his, Zack found himself in a predicament that shattered his beliefs and trust in Shin-Ra. It felt like he had slept for eternity, his body barely cooperative after heavy sedation and prolonged exposure to mako. But he was a SOLDIER 1st Class. He was used to whatever mild treatments had been done on him to increase his abilities. When he took a look at Cloud—a mere infantryman that was debated to be in the right place at the wrong time or the wrong place at the right time—he pitied him. Compared to him, the quiet blond youth was smaller and weaker than him and his enhanced body. Still, this young man had been able to kill the strongest SOLDIER of them all. Perhaps that was why they kept him there. He had done the impossible, that of which even Zack couldn’t do. And now, in a deafening and eerie silence, he had been reduced to a vegetable.

Zack picked up Cloud in his arms as best as he could with his waning strength until something caught his eye on a computer screen nearby. He hadn’t figured out where he was, but the report that had been pulled up just before he had knocked out the scientist that had been taking care of them revealed that four years had passed. There was a vague description of the two of them; their names didn’t matter when they were experiments. As he read the reports, his heart sank and a pit in his stomach opened up that would swallow everything around him. He turned his head to Cloud, who was comatose from mako poisoning.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you, Cloud,” he apologized to him. Approaching him, he cupped his face before noticing that his skin was still wet from the mako, its pungent smell of gasoline and chlorine and blood and petrichor stinging his nose once again. “We need to get you cleaned up. I…I hope I can find some new clothes for you. Ah, never mind that—I hope we have running water in this place…!”

Zack had Cloud lean against his shoulder, and he led him up from the basement to the remains of Nibelheim Manor. He couldn’t remember what had happened that led them to get stuck here. When he got to the second floor, he lay his junior on the bed as comfortably as possible then looked for the bathroom. When he found it at the end of the hall, he quickly turned the faucet in the sink. The water pressure was low, but at least it was running. He made his way to the bathtub before stopping short from gripping the spigot.

“It wouldn’t help to just make him sit in contaminated water,” he grumbled to himself. He searched the bathroom for any type of container that was big enough to hold at least half a gallon of water. Under the sink, he had found a bucket presumably for mopping. “It’s better than nothing.”

First, Zack stood in the tub, filled the bucket, and poured water on himself—clothes and all—to wash off whatever mako was still on him. It was always cold in Nibelheim, so he had to work fast so not to freeze to death. But if he had to strip down before taking care of Cloud, he didn’t mind. Cloud was precious to him—a small, gentle, injured bird that he wanted to nurse back to health. He would never admit to him and was sure to keep it a secret from Aerith, but he did love him dearly. It was only recently that he accepted his feelings, which was why now he wanted to help him not out of responsibility but because he cherished him far too much to watch him suffer.

He returned to the bedroom where Cloud was resting. He hadn’t checked for towels, but more than likely he could find something to dry both of them when he needed to. Because there was no way that he would let Cloud’s porcelain skin touch the germ-infested ground of an old bathroom, though, he stripped him while he was on the bed. Of course, at times it would be viewed as strange or intimate, but the way that the clothes were peeling away from his soaked skin made his stomach churn. His pure white skin was stained with luminescent green, faint patches of black slowly growing on him as the mako irritated his skin. Once it was washed off, Zack hoped that the patches would go away.  
Zack led him to the bathroom, gently lowered him into the bathtub so that he sat against the back of it, then began the long and slow process of filling the bucket up and dumping it on him. Unfortunately, as he had learned, he wouldn’t get anything hotter than lukewarm. He had to work with what he had.

“Say, Cloud,” Zack spoke to break the maddening silence. “Did you ever think that I would be the one giving you a bath? It’s weird, yeah, but honestly, with…with all that we’ve been through in Shin-Ra, it’s like a massage, right?”

Cloud let out a soft grunt. It wasn’t a response to anything, but Zack wanted to think that he was trying to talk with him.

“I may not be a massage therapist, but I know how to use my hands! If we can get out of here, I’ll definitely give you the best spa treatment I can!”

Filling the bucket, pouring it on Cloud, filling the bucket again, pouring it again. Zack kept a close eye on the patches before deeming that all of the mako had been washed off. He let him know that he was going to find something to dry him with, returning after a few minutes with a large but ragged towel. Drying his hair and face, then his arms and torso before pulling him out to dry his abdomen and legs as best as he could without letting him fall; Zack wrapped the towel around both of them as he guided him back to the bedroom.

“Okay, let’s get you something to wear, yeah?” Zack cheerfully chimed. He searched the dresser and closets until he found an old SOLDIER 1st Class uniform. “Ugh, it smells, but it’ll do, and it’s better than mako. Hmm, I know it’s not comfortable, but you might have to go without underwear for some time. I really don’t want you getting a rash from mako-soaked boxers.”

Zack dressed Cloud as best as he could with the latter flopping around and moving every time he tried to put clothes on him. Save for the pauldrons that would get in the way of a proper rest, Cloud was completely dressed. Zack had to admit, he looked stunning in it.

It was around midday when exhaustion from the mako poisoning and taking care of Cloud caught up to him. Zack shuffled his junior closer to the wall. He went to the bedroom door, shut it, and locked it tight just in case they had anyone coming to making a rounds; after all, if there was a scientist in the basement—probably still out cold—then there were definitely guards waiting for them. It was better to leave under the cover of night. With that, Zack crawled onto the bed with Cloud. He put Cloud’s arm in the crook of his waist while he cradled him against his chest. What was this sudden feeling? He loved him, but there was an unshakeable anxiety that he wouldn’t be able to protect him. Zack curled up with Cloud in his grip.

“I won’t let anything happen to you, okay?” he said quietly to him. “I love you too much to let you die, so…don’t think I’ll leave you behind.”

There was a brief—imperceptible even—moment of clarity. Cloud’s arm twitched, and in a whisper that Zack just missed as he forced himself to sleep, he uttered:

“L…v…Za…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is all written on a whim as preparation for the impending doom of Nibelheim.


	2. Sinking Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud's side of the descent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Self-indulgent and I'm so close to getting back to Nibelheim and I'm not ready to see my baby boy become a vegetable. So I thought this would prepare me. Nope--even though I know what all happens, it still hurts D:

Cloud found himself strapped to a dissection table in a room that was dimly lit by the green light of mako. His consciousness came and went, but he had assumed that he was in the Shin-Ra building. There was a stinging pain in his chest, and while he couldn’t see what was wrong, he caught a glimpse of crimson. He was breathing shallow and raspy until he realized that there was an oxygen mask around his nose and mouth. A machine was beeping monotonously that was slowly driving him crazy. Then someone came to turn it off.

“Professor Hojo, the subject is awake again,” that person said. “Should I sedate him?”

Cloud tried to speak, but something made it impossible. He couldn’t think straight aside from something was wrong. A shorter man with circle glasses, a ponytail, and a nasty face hovered over him. Examining him from head to toe, he picked up a clipboard. Then he nodded to his colleague, and suddenly the world went out of focus. He was getting nauseous.

“The S cells I grafted into him still aren’t responding,” Hojo grumbled. “Let’s try injecting mako into him. Up the dosage. If this doesn’t work, we’ll have to submerge him entirely, which I wanted to avoid for sake of resources, but I suppose we have the reactor right next door should we need anymore.”

“Yes, sir,” the other scientist said. He rolled a silver cart with all manner of surgical tools next to him. “Mako energy, 500 CCs preparing for injection.”

Cloud couldn’t move where he was with the straps holding him down and the paralyzing nausea. The scientist had set up an IV drip with the same liquid that illuminated a corner of the room and placed the needle into the largest vein in his left arm. Mako was, in a sense, radioactive and could cause a number of deadly problems to the human body. With the S cells that had been placed into him, though, the effects were somewhat mitigated. Cloud felt the burning cold liquid enter his veins, and at once he felt a wave of impending doom crash over him. He gagged, which coupled with the nausea that had come the sedative and his restraints, made him struggle to turn onto his side. His body wouldn’t obey. The only thing left to do was to force himself not to vomit whatever was going to come up.

Hojo came over to him again to stare down into his face with a magnifying glass. “His eyes have the glow now, but why is there still no reaction?” he questioned. “Perhaps if we stress the subject, the presence of adrenaline might instigate a reaction.”

“What about the other test subject?” the scientist asked.

“The 1st Class? At this point, that failure is nothing more than a control. It was a mistake to think I could use S cells in someone who has already been infused with mako. Now then, let’s see what makes you react…”

Taking the scalpel into his hand, Hojo cut through the fabric of Cloud’s pants in the center of thigh. When he exposed his skin, he carefully buried the tiny blade deep into the muscle and sliced down just an inch. A simple laceration wouldn’t be enough to cause him anxiety but pouring salt into the wound would. That was when the scientist heard him start gurgling, the bile that came up from him stomach dripping from the corners of his mouth as he tried not to drown in it.

“Hmm, not the reaction I was expecting,” Hojo scoffed. “Flip him over and re-tie his restraints.”

The scientist did as he was told, moving the IV drip to the opposite side of the table, unbuckling him from the table, flipping him onto his stomach so that the bile could drain out from him, and re-tying the belts.

Cloud immediately spewed his fluids on the floor before blacking out again. The nausea didn’t leave him; the sedative was a little more than he could handle, and the mako flowing into him from the IV just kept getting worse.

Hojo noticed the hole in his shirt and the blood around it. “He survived an otherwise fatal wound from Sephiroth, yet his heart rate and respiration rate continue to be above normal. Could it be that he has been reacting? We need to push the limit.” Hojo went before him. He grabbed him by his jaw, wrenching his head up to look in his eyes. Pupils dilated. Black spots in a blue-green sea. “Adrenaline isn’t a catalyst then. At this rate, he will need to be submerged like that other one.”

“Za…” Cloud sibilated.

“Oh, he can speak? Up the dosage.”

The scientist added more mako to the IV drip on the rack, causing his body to convulse. His whimpers were masked by the shuffling and clattering of the tools on the cart before it was taken over to one of the experimentation pods. In the midst of his seizure, a body flopped on the floor just to the side of the table that struck a memory in him.

“Z…” Cloud rattled. The man on the floor stared back up at him with lidded eyes. The scientist went over to him with a large syringe. “Z…Za…” he tried to call to him. The scientist drew up blood into the syringe then brought it to Cloud. “A..Ah?”

“Professor Hojo, are you sure this will work?” the scientist asked.

“Yes, yes,” Hojo nonchalantly said while reading over the charts again. “That SOLDIER has S cells in him. His blood will be carrying that and mako at this point, so it might add more to what we’re aiming for.”

Hojo pulled the other body back to the pod, refilling it with mako and letting him soak again. Cloud passed out.

When he woke up next, Hojo had dumped cold water on him to shock him awake. It didn’t work to cause any sort of reaction. Disappointed that Cloud had failed to show any indication of a reaction through somewhat safer means, he had no choice but to lock him up in the pod and let him soak just like the other one.

“Which reminds me…” Hojo muttered. “Drain the pod. He needs a minute to get some slightly fresh air.”

“Please…” the other subject rasped. “Ho…jo…”

Cloud’s pod filled with mako, a strong desire to sleep washing over him as it stung his skin and eyes. The layers of glass had muffled the other subject’s voice, the mako making it almost inaudible.

“Clearly, you need to steep longer,” Hojo grumbled.

“Don’t…hurt…him…” he gurgled. “Don’t…hurt him…”

“I’m afraid I won’t abide by your wishes, Mister…Zack Fair, was it? The only good science comes from pushing past the ethical boundaries, unfettered by the political correctness of modern day. You see, that was the undoing of science when people became aware of necessity of suffering and sought to hide it by imposing ridiculous restrictions. Even if the true nature of this experiment is kept secret from Shin-Ra themselves, I am willing to risk even killing you to get the result I want.”

“C…does…”

Cloud’s consciousness was waning again. What was this experiment? Why was he a test subject? The mako bubbled as it filled his lungs, his mouth, his nose, his ears. All inside it sloshed around.

Cloud opened his eyes to find himself in complete darkness. He didn’t know where he was or how much time had passed. He was sitting alone in the pitch-black world that cut off all his senses. Someone had been with him, but who? He tried to remember.

“Za…Za…ck?” he sounded it out. “Where is Zack?”

His head felt heavy. Where was he that he couldn’t sit up straight without expending effort? And the nausea…the nausea was still there unabated and threatening to spill out of him again. He was restless even though he felt like he was tied down to a chair. There was a pain in his head as if something had drilled to the back of it. He remembered that someone had hurt him terribly, and the wicked laughter echoed all around him which elicited a fear he had never known before.

“Zack…I want Zack…” he whimpered. Trembling hands, trembling heart—he had lost the only person he had left. “Zack, c-come out…I don’t…I can’t be alone…” There was no one except the darkness. And in that darkness, he heard someone calling out to him. “No…I want Zack…”

He covered his ears, but the voice was still loud like someone was speaking right next to him. “More mako,” the voice said. The illness creeped up his throat like festering rot. He was unwell, and it was becoming more and more evident that he had never been well in the first place. “More mako.”

He had always been different. No one liked him. He was easy to push down. Pushing down what hurt the most, what mattered most. He wasn’t anyone special.

“Zack, please, I need you!” Cloud cried out frantically. “I don’t know what’s happening…! I don’t know where I am!”

The voice taunted him like the squealing piglet that he was, ripe for the slaughter and ready to be stuffed full of someone else because in the end, he was nothing. Not a human. Not a useful subject. Not a good boyfriend or foot-soldier. Nothing.

“I won’t abide by your wishes,” Zack told him, staring at him from deep within the darkness. “You’re deadweight. Always a pain in my ass. Sink into the darkness and never come out.”

“Zack…wait…what are you saying…?” Cloud panicked. “No…no, don’t say that…Zack…!”

Time passed, the voice growing into a multitude of them that all said the same thing so often that he had come to believe it. The swirling mass of haze, the glowing green ground that wet his toes. He stared into the nothingness, taking in all the insults and garbage without resistance. All he was good for was being a puppet. His body, full of these mysterious S cells, was a piece of clean slate waiting to transcribe the original.

“Cloud…” Zack’s voice came. The SOLDIER broke free from his pod and knocked out the scientist that had been doing Hojo’s bidding. He had emptied Cloud’s pod of all the mako in it. When he opened it, the infantryman flopped out into his arms. “Cloud, wake up. Come on. Can you hear me?” He gently shook him.

Where was he? Not the Shin-Ra building. Who was this man talking to him? The name was on the tip of his brain. He had a mouth but no way to speak. Was his name Zack? Zack thought he was a burden. But he got him out. Out from where? Going where? What good was any of this? The world was glowing but not ready for them.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you, Cloud,” he apologized to him.

Sorry? Sorry for what? Who was he? The drool dripped from his chin. He was wet and cold—just perfect for an insignificant bug. Nothing was real. These thoughts went round and round in his mako-drugged mind, and Cloud was helpless to deter them. No matter how much he wanted to scream, the very sound of his voice was nonexistent.

Some ten minutes later, he was sitting in a different room. Zack stared at his face with his eyebrows stitched together. His lips were moving, but there was no sound. Then Zack gently kissed him. It was just enough to help him utter:

“Z…”

Zack left the room for water and new clothes.

“Z…co…b…”

Zack washed him and dressed him.

“Z…h…p…” but so quietly that Zack didn’t hear him.

When Zack lay him on his side on the bed close to the wall and crawled onto it to be next to him, he stared at his chest. Zack moved his arm. Both of them longed to hold each other even though only one could manage it. He pulled him closer, allowing Cloud to listen to the sluggish heart beating in his chest. Both of them were sick, weren’t they?

Trapped in his mind like he was stuck inside of a tiny box, he imagined what his idol smelled like. Laying next to him was nice. He was so far removed from what was happening around him, the screen peering into that world growing smaller and smaller.

“I love you, Zack,” he said deep inside his scrambled head. “Thank you for caring for me. I’m sorry I can’t be of any help.” He reached for the speck of light. “I’ll do my best to get better, and then we can be together.”

Cloud barely felt Zack stroke his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Naturally, there are influences from Get Out, Made in Abyss, the original game's events when Cloud succumbs to Sephiroth's will. Cloud was trapped in his own mind for so long...

**Author's Note:**

> The whole last couple chapters of Zack carrying Cloud with him from Nibelheim back to just in front of Midgar was painful but so damn good!


End file.
